Sullivan's entry into entrepreneurship brings with it another possible model for monetizing content.

Following the New York Times's lead, Sullivan built a metered paywall, allowing access to stories from social media links and offering seven free stories a month to non-subscribers.

"Incoming links from other blogs and websites will never, ever count toward the meter; other bloggers need not fear that their readers won’t be able to see content they link to," Sullivan said in his introductory post.

The new site, designed to look similar to the former Daily Beast-hosted blog of the same name, is ad-free and allows users to scroll continuously downward and read new posts.

This, Sullivan said on Jan. 2 when he declared his independence that he wanted to avoid outside influence.

"We felt more and more that getting readers to pay a small amount for content was the only truly solid future for online journalism," Sullivan wrote. "The only completely clear and transparent way to do this, we concluded, was to become totally independent of other media entities and rely entirely on you for our salaries, health insurance and legal, technological and accounting expenses."

Sullivan also previously hinted at plans for a tablet-only magazine, a bold move just two months after the folding of News Corporation's tablet, The Daily.